


The Protector and the Protected

by Justanotherfangirl



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Blood, F/M, Fluff, I thought it'd be cool to see Julia as the protector instead of Magnus ya know?, Non canon compliant, just how they met and stuff it's sweet and cute and good
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 02:47:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10935396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Justanotherfangirl/pseuds/Justanotherfangirl
Summary: Magnus wasn't always the protector; he learned it from Julia.





	The Protector and the Protected

Magnus was really in trouble now. He had pissed off the three meanest, nastiest boys in Raven's Roost, some might say the whole country: the McHaddock brothers.

“Get back here!” the oldest one, Hamir, shouted. “Ya better apolergize!”

“No!” Magnus shouted, weaving in and out of the crowds and the stalls in the marketplace. He accidentally knocked over a basket full of apples, sending them tumbling into the street. The shopkeeper shouted at him, but he didn’t have time to stop.

“Sorry!” he yelled behind him. “I’ll come back and clean it up later!”

The apple incident at least slowed the McHaddocks down. Glancing behind him to make sure the boys were gone, Magnus skidded to a stop in an alleyway to catch his breath. He slid down the wall of a building and breathed heavily. Gods, he was dumb.

Magnus knew he shouldn’t have aggravated them. He wasn’t very big, and there was only one of him while there were three of them. His mama had always taught him not to get into a fight he couldn’t win, but in this case, he couldn’t help it. They were trying to kill street cats, luring them in with poisoned food and laughing when the cats started hacking and choking. Magnus couldn’t stand to see it, so he told them off.

And they got pissed.

Magnus heard footsteps behind him. Shit. The McHaddocks had caught up to him. “Listen here, ya little shit,” Hamir spat. “Ya better apolergize to my baby brothers, here, if ya wanna walk away with yer face still in the same arrangement.”

Magus tried to back away, but his back hit the wall. There was nowhere to go. Regardless, he would never apologize for doing the right thing. Although he was terrified, Magnus stood straight and defiant. “No! You shouldn’t have been hurting those cats! They didn’t do anything to you!”

Hamir snarled, lifting Magnus off the ground by the collar of his shirt. “Ya asked fer this!”

The two younger brothers held him down as Hamir punched him over and over again. Blood spurted from Magnus’s nose, but the brothers didn’t stop. It hurt so bad, but Magnus could take it, and he would not scream, even though tears streamed down his face. Eventually, the two younger brothers got bored.

“Hey, Hamir, lemme have a turn,” Magnus heard through a haze of pain.

Hamir chuckled. “‘A course, bro, have at 'em!”

They shuffled positions. Magnus thought about taking advantage of this opportunity to get away, but his vision was too blurry and the world was spinning too much for him to move. He just lay there as another brother got in prime punching position. He closed his eyes, waiting for the hit to come. Maybe he would just pass out and this would all be over.

“Hey you!” a confident voice shouted.

Magnus felt the brothers drop him, and he crumpled to the ground. He used all of his strength to lift his head to get a glance at his savior. A girl stood at the entrance to the alley, her hands on her hips and her bobbed hair blowing around her face. She looked to be about eleven or twelve, a couple years older than Magnus. She was wearing overalls with one side flopping lazily down, exposing a dirty red shirt underneath. Magnus thought she looked like one of the legendary heroes or ancient warriors he had heard tales about, standing there so confidently. Magnus also thought she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

“Are you okay?” the girl said, kneeling beside Magnus. She had freckles dusting her nose and a missing front tooth. He couldn’t form words; whether that was due to the injuries or the beautiful girl in front of him he didn’t know. The girl grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet. Every muscle in his body protested.

“I’ll take you to my daddy, he’ll fix you up!”

She practically dragged him the couple blocks to her house. Magnus was on the brink of collapse when they finally reached the door and she led him inside. The girl plopped him onto a simple wooden bench with cushions on it.

“You stay here, I’ll get him!”

Magnus complied, mostly because he couldn’t really move without feeling immense pain all over his body. He looked around the room, noticing all the wooden furniture and sculptures. The room was simple, but homey. The only furnishings were the hand-carved wooden statues; no two were the same. If he could have gotten up Magus would have wanted to look at each one individually. They were beautifully carved.

The room only had two doors; the one he and the girl had entered from and another one that the girl left through. He craned his neck, but he couldn’t see what lay beyond that door. He flopped back down and closed his eyes. He was so tired. He was just drifting off to sleep when the girl returned with a tall, strongly built man carrying a first aid kit.

“Here he is daddy!” the girl said cheerfully. The man looked down at Magnus with concern. _I must be in bad shape for this stranger to be looking at me like that _, Magnus thought to himself.__

____

____

“What happened?” he asked.

Before Magnus could answer, the girl chimed in. “He was in an alley and the McHaddock’s were hitting him, but I told them to back off and they ran away!” She seemed more proud of her ability to scare the boys than concerned for Magnus. The man smiled at the girl. Magnus felt his heart twist.

“What’s your name, son?”

“I-it’s Magnus,” he said. The man put a hand on his shoulder, and Magnus tried not to show how badly it hurt. The man’s brow furrowed again.

“I’m Steven. That looks like it hurts a lot,” said Steven, kneeling down next to Magnus. Magnus just nodded. “Don’t worry, Magnus, we’re gonna call a cleric, okay?”

Magnus nodded again. He just wanted to go to sleep, but Steven started talking again.

“Where do you live, Magnus? I’m gonna swing by and tell your parents you’re here.”

Magnus shrugged. “I don’t have any parents.”

Steven started. “What? Where do you live?”

“The orphanage in the next town over," mumbled Magnus. He really didn’t want to talk about it, especially with that pretty girl staring at him with wide eyes. He looked away. Steven smiled sympathetically at him.

"Well, why don't you stay here tonight, just to make sure you're alright. I'll send someone to let the orphanage know where you are."

Magnus nodded, figuring he had nothing to lose. This man was being very nice to him, and Magnus desperately wanted to spend more time with the mystery girl.

As if reading his thoughts, Steven piped up again. "Oh! And this is my daughter, Julia," Steven said, ruffling her hair. "She's a bit of a troublemaker, always roughing up those boys and giving them hell for all their antics."

Julia grinned wide, exposing the gap in her front teeth, and stood proudly with her hands on her hips. "Yep! Nobody messes with me!"

Steven chuckled. "You two are about the same age. Julia, maybe tomorrow, when Magnus is feeling better, you can show him around Raven's Roost. How does that sound?"

Julia nodded excitedly, then scurried off at Steven's behest. Soon, the cleric Steven sent for arrived and patched Magnus up. Steven and the cleric seemed to know each other, and talked as the cleric healed Magnus's wounds. As Steven and the cleric struck up a congenial conversation, Magnus drifted off to sleep, still thinking about Julia and Steven, who had showed him kindness and compassion, something it felt like he hadn't been shown in quite awhile. In fact, Magnus thought that it was the nicest thing anyone had done for him since his mother died. He would have to do something to repay them. His last thought before falling into sleep was a hopeful whisper: _maybe they'll let me stay here. _Magnus smiled in his sleep.__

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This is my first multi chapter fic so I wanna hear your feedback and ideas if you have any! Hit me up on my tumblr: the-syrup-witch


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